The problem facing leagues and networks is how to migrate programming from traditional cable to streaming in a manner that maximizes revenues during the transition and after it has been completed.

Today, cable and over the air networks receive payments from cable, satellite and virtual multichannel carriers for all of their customers, not just those who are sports fans. This allows leagues and networks to collect large revenues from rights fees without charging avid sports fans more than other customers.

It seems almost certain that the move to streaming will require sports fans to bear a larger portion of the cost of sports rights OR will result in leagues receiving lower revenues.

One possibility is that streaming rights and telecast rights for events and packages may be sold separately. We already see this with entertainment programming. For instance, The Office is available on cable on Comedy Central but is also available for streaming on Peacock. Undoubtedly this would reduce the value of the cable rights and the carriage fees for the channel with those rights, but it may allow a transition where the carriage fees decline slowly over time rather than falling off a cliff.